auto tone

[sniper]

Hi everybody, I'm new to the site, and was wondering if anybody can help with my question.  
I use lightroom as part of my workflow (I handle thousands of wedding photos every week) and wanted to use the auto tone option (in develop mode) to average out the images ready for proofing, but I'm finding the results far too light. Is there any way to ajust the auto tone or turn it down a bit, if you know what I mean?
Any help would be welcome.  Wayne

[tomrock]

After you've applied Auto, you can select all the images and click the left-pointing triangle in the Quick-Develop Exposure which will drop the exposure 1/3 stop. That will darken things a little.

But I wonder if maybe your screen is too bright?

[sniper]

After you've applied Auto, you can select all the images and click the left-pointing triangle in the Quick-Develop Exposure which will drop the exposure 1/3 stop. That will darken things a little.

But I wonder if maybe your screen is too bright?
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Thanks for the reply, my monitors calibrated and the prints match what I see on screen, it seems the auto setting is too light (I'm wondering if I have accidently altered it in some way?)  I'll try the darken all option and see how I get on with that, I'll post an image when I get chance for you to see.  Thanks  Wayne

[sniper]

Thanks for the reply, my monitors calibrated and the prints match what I see on screen, it seems the auto setting is too light (I'm wondering if I have accidently altered it in some way?)  I'll try the darken all option and see how I get on with that, I'll post an image when I get chance for you to see.  Thanks  Wayne
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Heres a before and after for comparrison.   Wayne

[genemcc]

Wayne,

There have been some significant changes with Lightroom 1.1.  I see from your posted example that you are still running 1.0.  The upgrade is free so install it and see if the Auto Tone feature has improved.  You can get the windows update here: Lightroom 1.1 Update for Windows

[sniper]

Wayne,

There have been some significant changes with Lightroom 1.1.  I see from your posted example that you are still running 1.0.  The upgrade is free so install it and see if the Auto Tone feature has improved.  You can get the windows update here: Lightroom 1.1 Update for Windows
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Thanks genemcc I have installed the update now (from your link) but haven't had time to try the auto to see if it's improved.  Wayne

[sniper]

Thanks genemcc I have installed the update now (from your link) but haven't had time to try the auto to see if it's improved.  Wayne
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No change it's still way to light, it seems to ajust all the images the same amount and not ajust each image as an individual, any ideas guys?    Wayne

[seamus finn]

Be careful how you apply the exposure in Quick Develop. A single arrow means 1/3 stop, a twin arrow means one stop. It's easy to press the wrong arrow. Look for a tutorial on the usefulness of the Quick Develop mode on a site called Lightroom Killer Tips. Many people ignore Quick Develop but it's really useful for applying a uniform adjustment across images to achieve indiividually different exposure changes, configured on the original exposure, if you see what I mean. Thus,each pic gets 1/3 stop extra or less, for instance, based on the exposure of that particular pic at the time you took it.

PS. Haven't been using auto tone but after your post, tried it. It does as you say - it seems to be a useless mess.
S

[eleanorbrown]

I always try auto tone but in the develop module.  could it be that the auto feature simply sets your white and black points?  I always end up either bringing down the brightness too using the exposure tool, or in some cases, bring down the brightness using the brightness  tool option (bringing down the gamma). Eleanor

Be careful how you apply the exposure in Quick Develop. A single arrow means 1/3 stop, a twin arrow means double. It's easy to press the wrong arrow. Look for a tutorial on the usefulness of the Quick Develop mode on a site called Lightroom Killer Tips. Many people ignore Quick Develop but it's really useful for applying a uniform adjustment across images to achieve indiividually different exposure changes, configured on the original exposure, if you see what I mean. Thus,each pic gets 1/3 stop extra or less, for instance, based on the exposure of that particular pic at the time you took it.
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[sniper]

I always try auto tone but in the develop module.  could it be that the auto feature simply sets your white and black points?  I always end up either bringing down the brightness too using the exposure tool, or in some cases, bring down the brightness using the brightness  tool option (bringing down the gamma). Eleanor
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Eleanor, when I use the auto in the develop module it seems to ajust all the images the same amount regardless of how much ajustment is needed (I'm trying to batch ajust) they are all to light, even images which are corectly exposed to start with.  Should auto sync be on or off? I have been selecting all images (CTRL A)  Wayne

[theophilus]

I never auto-tone.  I don't like how it sets the white and black points, and arbitrarily puts +50 on brightness and +25 on contrast on every image.

If it isn't working for you it would be better for you to find a setting that does seem to work and then save it as a preset.  You can then apply that preset to every image as you import into the library from you card/disk.  You can also mass apply a preset to a folder, and I imagine it will be roughly the same result.

[sniper]

Auto tone is just that, AUTO, so there is no preset of settings for it nor would you make one, plus you can't make a single preset that works in 'auto'-mating a balanced tonal set for each different image. It doesn't use 50 brightness and 25 contrast, it sets it automatically for each image and does a crappy job at that. I wouldn't expect it to be great but it would be nice at times when you need something down and dirty quick such as family snapshots and the like.

Where AUTO completely fails is when using it on in camera jpegs. Doesn't work correctly at all. Last time I checked, LR is supposed to work on basically any common image format, raw, tiff, jpeg.
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It's JPEGs I'm trying to use it on, I have tp process 1000's of wedding photos and they all use jpeg in prefference to RAW.   Wayne